The film features some giants in British cinema even for the time the movie was released, such as a Pre-Batman Cillian Murphy, the largerly underrated (and unfortunately, often forgotten) Naomie Harris, the always-great Brendan Gleeson, and a Pre-"Doctor Who" Christopher Eccleston. Amazing how we didn't know any of these people before this movie, but across the Ocean they were all well-known to varying degrees already.
According to IMDB, it had a budget of about $8mil, which was not small. Though it had the feel of a small budget film for sure. Some of the audio is extremely unclear, and many of the action sequences end up being super close-ups of rapid movement so you can hardly even tell what's going on. But to me this is all part of the charm of this movie. As I said, the movie is carried by the characters and their survival, not the action sequences many come to expect from the horror genre.
There were some glaring problems, though. Audio is a big issue for the movie, and some scenes were hilariously over-acted just to point out the issue with the audio. Just one instance of this is when Jim and Selena find Frank's apartment, and Jim starts screaming for Serena to wait for him as they run up the stairs from the zombies. Some more issues include the character Hannah's terrible acting (which could be why the actress hasn't appeared in anything else since), and the gigantic shift in Serena's character. She starts the movie as a hard, badass woman who is out for survival. She's cold, but is willing to work with whoever comes along to survive so long as they don't slow her down. Towards the end she becomes pitiful, losing all her character-defining strength, and relies on Jim to save her. She turns into a trope, and Jim the reluctant hero saves the day. I have serious issues with this change, and it seems to come right after Frank's death, for seemingly no reason.
Now I love this movie, don't get me wrong. Not only was it revolutionary in bringing the zombie film back to us, but Cillian Murphy's Jim was something of an every-man - his mannerisms, choices, and opinions are what your average person's would probably be in the same situation. And the playful use of Jim walking into an abandoned room and saying "Hello" is one of the best jokes in the movie. The music score is well-utilized, and creates some gorgeous moments in this movie. There is some unique camera work used in it, and not just your typical straight shot used throughout the entire movie.
A common theme in literature is a device known as a "hellmouth". This is literally the entrance to Hell. You'd be surprised how often this appears in media, and this movie has perhaps one of my favorite uses of the Hellmouth. Though life is survival for Jim, Serena, Hannah, and Frank, things don't actually become dangerous for the group until they enter a Hellmouth: the gate to the military complex they spend the movie searching for. Once they arrive here, they find just how bad things are for them. After they go through the Hellmouth is the first time it has rained since the outbreak occurred. It's brilliant symbolism. Keep an eye out for Hellmouths in the future. You'll probably see them pointed out often going through my collection.
If you love horror films, this is a must see. If you love "The Walking Dead", you will love this movie. If you want non-stop action with zero regard for plot, this is not the movie you want.
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It has a solid cast: Pre-Hawk-Guy Jeremy Renner, Idris Elba, Robert Carlyle, and Harold Perrineau (Mercutio in "Romeo+Juliet", and Constantine's Angel buddy in the short-lived, but tremendous "Constantine" show). But notice the lack of a strong female cast. There are three female characters that are focused on in this movie: one is a child who spends most of the movie just screaming, another is the "a scientist who refuses to follow protocol because she knows better" (played by Rose Byrne), and the other is the kids' mother who is found and then killed early in the movie. It seems these movies have something against powerful women.
"28 Weeks Later" had a 2007 release, and followed the typical "sequel with no ties to the original" formula: it sucked. You get a terrific actor like Carlyle, then you just turn him into a zombie early in the movie, then have him hunt the main characters the entire movie because his son . . . had his wife's eyes? It had a few jump scenes, but was mostly a generic action-horror in the vein of the Resident Evil franchise (which we will unfortunately be sitting through here . . . ).
The basic plot makes little sense, with the American Military quarantining London and keeping order (instead of the EU or the UN). Two kids come into the quarantine zone, and immediately break protocol and leave the area to go to their old home. This of course causes an outbreak to occur within the quarantine zone (which could have easily been prevented), the kids hold the cure for the virus, while an American military scientist who refuses to follow protocol along with an American Soldier who refuses to follow protocol see them to safety while they're hunted by the rage-zombie version of their own father, who only became infected because he decided not to follow protocol. There's a serious trend of no one following protocol in this movie!
The acting is mostly decent, but the plot weighs this movie don't significantly. Every time I watch this movie I just feel like it was an attempt to flex American muscle by showing the US government as being the saviors of the UK. They basically Americanized what could have been a great British film series.
There are some spots they try to keep the small budget feel - particularly the opening scene - but then they throw it away to make it more of a militaristic movie. They tried masquerading it as a big-budget movie, but doing so made it lose the artistry the first movie had. No wide shots of the empty city or countryside to a crescendo in the soundtrack. Just close-ups of Robert Carlyle looking either confused or angry.
The time lapse they give at the beginning doesn't make much sense to me, either. "Days" took place obviously 28 days after the outbreak. At the end of the movie they were hiding out on the countryside 28 days after that. It has officially been 8 weeks since the outbreak. The time lapse of "Weeks" straight contradicts this, saying that 5 weeks after the outbreak the US government moved in to quarantine London. Why did we see no sign of this is "Days" while Jim and crew were traveling the countryside? Wouldn't the US government have been scanning radio signals like Frank had been?
The nightvision scene was nearly pointless. It just wanted to be "The Descent" (which came out 2 years earlier), but failed miserably. It even tries to play off the idea that "Shaun of the Dead" toyed with that the infected retain base components of their own memories and personalities. And therein lies the issue with this movie: it tries to be other things instead of just being its own thing like the original.
We get no closure in the end. The kids escape, everyone that was with them dies, and we see infected attacking Paris 28 days after the events we witness here. Does that mean everything was futile? The kids escaping did not provide a cure? What was the point in this, then? We journey with these characters the whole time to find them not only fail, but fail off screen so we don't even witness it. This is very poor story telling.
In the end, I highly recommend "28 Days Later..." It holds up well as time progresses, and is quite enjoyable (until you've seen it a few dozen times and start picking out the issues). I do not recommend "28 Weeks Later". The whole movie seems to occur due to happenstance that could and should have been easily prevented. Though to be fair, they are better than the "Resident Evil" movies that the second one obviously was trying to be (I mean, Carlyle is basically the Nemesis from RE2).
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